Manage by Stages Principle

Most Agile methods use iterations; timeboxed periods of time, during which development processes are repeated for a subset of features and a new version of working output (increment) is created.

PRINCE2 uses stages for management purposes; to make it easier to plan and control the project.

PRINCE2 Agile uses the following combination by default:

Which means that the releases and the iterations (Sprints in Scrum) are below the stage level. It means that there are more levels of detailing involved in the project, which can also help with the Manage by Exception Principle.

It's nevertheless possible to simplify this system by merging the releases and stages together, or even merge the iterations, releases, and stages.